Many Questions...Where to begin?

[Dawnde]

Greeting Mackie D8B Family,

My name is Dawnde. I am a drummer/percussion player by night and Senior Network Security Engineer by day.

What brings me here today is that I recently acquired a Mackie D8b. I got it home and plugged it in and was able to successfully POST. I saw the faders on the board move and was able to get as far as plugging a line into Mic 1 but could not hear any audio. I could see a level, made sure Phones 1 was turned up (the basics.) I did not have any peripherals plugged in at this time (Monitor, keyboard, mouse.) I could not find a way to properly shut down the unit so I switched the power button off on the CPU. When it attempted to reboot it would not post and I received a "System Error 43 - Host did not Boot! Check Computer Rack or call Tech Support." Long story short I did some researching. I went and replaced the CMOS battery as well as grabbed a monitor and connected it to the CPU so I could see the POST output. It appears that the hard drive is not being seen. I did the needful. I reseated the power, ribbon cables, tried the other IDE channel and still nothing. The next step is to pull the drive and see if I can connect to it using a laptop. My goal is to copy what ever information (5.1 upgrade folder (as I have red in other posts) and then I was going to obtain a 4GB CF from eBay.

So far my experience with this unit has not gone over so well. I am also reaching out to ebay and acquiring the PS/2 mouse, keyboard and the MIDI to PS/2 adapter. I have zero documentation with this unit. However, thanks to this forum it can be obtained. I was going to reach out to the manufacturer with my S/N to see if they will provide any other information based upon S/N (pass keys or activation numbers needed for the unit.)


This is actually why I am posting here first is to reach out to anyone willing to point me in the right direction.

Should I purchase the parts from eBay (Mouse, keyboard, adapters, 4GB compact flash, additional ram?)
Should I reach out to Mackie with My S/N to see if they can provide additional support? (Maybe they are able to provide me with software keys? 5.1 update?)

Should I attempt to pull the hard drive and access it via USB?


I have enclosed a link to what photos I took of the unit. There are also a few screens that show error messages.

https://imgur.com/a/AZZW0

I appreciate your time,

Respectfully,

Dawnde

[arjepsen]

OK, first of all, check the settings in your bios - if they are not set correctly, that could give you the issue with the harddrive.
Follow this:
http://www.sonido-7.com/d8b/maintenance.html#Post1

Second, don't bother reaching out to Mackie - they don't care about this system anymore, and don't support it.
A user on this forum (Munkustrap) managed to modify it, so you can get 5.1 plus plugins working regardless of the esn number. Read through this thread:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1634
In there are guidelines on how to make it work. Ask questions if you run into problems.

Third:
I heartily applaud the idea of using a CF card instead of the harddrive - several of us have done it, and it works wonders.
The plus here, is that you can download an image I made of my fully installed system, use the image on your CF card, and then you should be set.

Regards
Anders

[Dawnde]

Anders,

First of all I wanted to thank you for your time. I at least wanted to come to the table and present the troubleshooting I could do w/o the mouse and keyboard. I am going to stop by Fry's Electronics and see if they can accommodate.

Second, thank you for the links. I am pretty sure I can make a bootable CF.

Lastly, could you point me to your image? I am also going to stop by Fry's and see if I can get a new CF. I know I have older ones at home. However, I would like to get new as this is pretty important. I remember seeing a list of parts I will need somewhere. I believe I could also get the list of what I need from the eBay auction (way to reverse engineer... Right?)

Much Respect!

Dawnde

[arjepsen]

First off, if you already have some CF's lying around, try them first. The OS is so small, it only fills about 8 Megabytes, plugins included!
Some people going the CF way mentioned having difficulties with some CF cards, although all the cards I've tried worked just fine. Try the ones you have first - if they work fine, you can always get a new one if you feel like it. (I don't think the speed will increase - again the OS is so small, and the files you write when mixing are only listing settings - it's so minor).

Second, you will need a CF-IDE adapter. This one looks prety much like the one I'm using:
https://www.amazon.com/Monoprice-Compac ... +flash+ide

Third, here's a link to a post I wrote about the procedure on putting the image on the CF card, link to my image included.
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1912&start=10#p14362
(While it's not a completely fresh install, you can just delete the project I was fiddling with at the time, and you're set).

Let me know how it goes.
Anders